TOP LINE

After decades without much representation, women could soon rule Vermont.

After this November’s election, women could come in just shy of a majority in the state's legislature, according to an informal tally from statehouse leaders — still a rarity in American politics since the first majority-woman state legislature in Nevada after the 2018 election. But it stretches beyond that in the Green Mountain State. In the past two years, Vermonters have elected the first woman to serve in Congress, Becca Balint; first elected woman attorney general, Charity Clark; and the first woman as mayor of Burlington, the state’s largest city, Emma Mulvaney-Stanak. Sarah Copeland Hanzas also became Vermont’s third woman secretary of state in 2022.

The representation continues throughout lower levels of state government. Half of all agencies in the executive branch — under GOP Gov. Phil Scott — have women secretaries, and more than half of the state’s attorneys are women. In the state legislature, women are serving in leadership positions, such as speaker of the state House and as chairs of the major money committees.

It has been a deliberate project in small-town Vermont politics, a state that’s not known for having a deep bench of talent given its modest population. Former Democratic Gov. Madeleine Kunin, the first woman to hold the job, founded the state branch of the organization Emerge, which recruits and trains Democratic women who want to run for office, in 2013. It also provides networking opportunities and fundraising support — two huge hurdles often preventing women from entering politics.

“Women, anecdotally, we do things differently,” said Elaine Haney, executive director of Emerge Vermont. “In general women tend to be more consensus builders, they tend to be more collaborative, they tend to be more bipartisan.”

The growth of women in Vermont reflects national trends, as women have slowly started to gain ground in all levels of government. But advocates say there’s more work to do — both in Vermont and throughout the country. Vermont ranks tied with Washington at fourth in the nation for female representation in the state legislature, according to research from the Center for American Women and Politics. (Nevada remains number one, with women holding 60 percent of positions.) Only one woman has served as governor in Vermont and not a single woman has been elected to the U.S. Senate, partly due to the long-running tenures of former Sen. Patrick Leahy and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Happy Monday. Liz ([email protected] and @liz_crampton) and Zach ([email protected] and @ZachMontellaro) filling in. But have no fear, Madison will be back tomorrow. Reach her at [email protected] and @madfernandez616.

Days until the Republican National Convention: 7

Days until the Arizona primaries: 22

Days until the Tennessee primaries: 24

Days until the Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington state primaries: 29

Days until the Hawaii primaries: 33

Days until the Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont and Wisconsin primaries: 36

Days until the Democratic National Convention: 42

Days until the Alaska, Florida and Wyoming primaries: 43

Days until the 2024 election: 120

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Presidential Big Board

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? — The pressure for President Joe Biden to step away from the Democratic ticket only built over the weekend, but the defiant president insists that he isn’t going anywhere. In a sit-down interview with ABC News on Friday, the president insisted he is “still in good shape” and brushed past calls for him to step aside.

“If the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race,” he said. “The Lord Almighty’s not coming down.”

But Democratic lawmakers are not reassured. Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) became the fifth House Democrat — and first from a battleground seat — to publicly call on Biden to step aside on Saturday, with many more grumbling privately to our colleagues (without attaching their name to it). Some senior House Democrats said as much on a private call on Sunday. And after a meeting with Democratic governors last week, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said Friday the president should “carefully evaluate whether he remains our best hope to defeat Donald Trump,” per POLITICO’s Bay State delegation. A handful of governors — including Maryland’s Wes Moore, New York’s Kathy Hochul and Minnesota’s Tim Walz, the chair of the DGA — left the meeting voicing their support.

This could all come to a head this week, when Congress is due back in Washington and members will see each other — and the press — face-to-face for the first time.

Biden, meanwhile, has tried to project that it is the press and Democratic Party elite — and not the rank-and-file — that want him gone. He made stops in Pennsylvania on Sunday, where at a Philadelphia church he was “greeted by a friendly, supportive congregation” that urged him to stay in the race, POLITICO’s Jessica Piper, Jared Mitovich and Jennifer Haberkorn wrote.

ALL SYSTEMS USUAL — Biden’s campaign is dropping a $50 million ad buy this month, along with additional travel, POLITICO’s Elena Schneider reports.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE — Former President Donald Trump is trying to distance himself from Project 2025, a plan from the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups to dramatically remake the federal government should Trump win. “I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump posted on Truth Social about the initiative, which is run by several former administration aides. Biden and other Democrats have increasingly centered Project 2025 in messaging to attack Trump. The AP’s Adriana Gomez Licon has more.

… Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted on X that he “won't take sides on 9/11 or any of the other debates. But I can promise is that [sic] I will open the files and usher in a new era of transparency.” He later followed up to say he was referencing recent reporting from “60 Minutes” about “possible Saudi involvement in 9/11” and related “speculation on X.” POLITICO’s Irie Sentner has more.

BEAT THE PRESS — Local radio hosts in Milwaukee and Philadelphia that Biden spoke with this weekend said they were offered suggested questions to ask the president in interviews. “It’s not at all an uncommon practice for interviewees to share topics they would prefer,” Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt told The Washington Post’s Azi Paybarah, adding that agreeing to questions was not a prerequisite for the campaign. Andrea Lawful-Sanders, the Philadelphia radio host, left the station after the interview, per The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Gillian McGoldrick.

VOTING RIGHTS

ON, WISCONSIN — The Wisconsin state Supreme Court restored the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in the state for upcoming elections, with the new(ish) liberal majority reversing a decision issued by the then-conservative controlled court barring them in 2022, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Lawrence Andrea and Molly Beck.

CAMPAIGN INTEL

FIRST IN SCORE — EYES ON AI — As campaigns continue to tinker with how they use artificial intelligence — and as some warn about the dangers of the technology — the country’s top political consultant trade group is hoping to shift the conversation by highlighting how AI is being deployed in elections, Madison writes in.

The American Association of Political Consultants Foundation is partnering with researchers from New York University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to create the AI Political Archive, a database of generative AI use cases in the 2024 cycle. The archive will focus on national and down-ballot races in order to create a more comprehensive look at AI in elections — and not just malicious uses.

“There's a lot of concern, some of that is overrated, some of it is underrated, but the thing that we should really be more concerned about is what's happening in down-ballot races,” said Scott Babwah Brennen of UNC’s Center on Technology Policy. “There's so much less attention given to local and state elections, and we have much less sense of what's going on there.”

Individuals will be able to submit examples of generative AI in campaigns — like ads and organic content on social media — through an online reporting tool. Researchers will then validate the submissions and categorize them, noting if the AI usage was disclosed and who is funding the ad. They plan on collecting examples from earlier in the primary season through November.

“It is our hope that this comprehensive view will help ensure that as an industry organization that sets standards and best practices, that we can stay ahead of the curve by seeing where the industry is going,” said Julie Sweet, director of advocacy and industry relations at the AAPC Foundation. “Having this comprehensive look really builds trust in not just the technology, but the industry and the political advertising more broadly that can deploy the technology.”

BIGGEST GUV RACE — North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the GOP gubernatorial nominee, said in a late-June speech that “‘some folks need killing,’ referencing Germans and Japanese in World War II, but he talked beyond that,” The News & Observer’s Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan wrote. During the speech, first reported by The New Republic, Robinson said “we now find ourselves struggling with people who have evil intent. There was a time when we used to meet evil on the battlefield. And guess what we did to it? We killed it. … When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, what did we do? We flew to Japan and we killed the Japanese Army and Navy.”

Robinson spokesperson Mike Lonergan told the press that the quote was being “cherry-picked,” and that he was specifically “speaking about the enemies of the U.S. and the Allied Powers during World War II” and not about present day.

STILL GOING — The GOP primary in UT-02 is inching to a close, with the last day of canvassing on Tuesday. GOP Rep. Celeste Maloy narrowly leads primary challenger Colby Jenkins, and the race is hovering around recount territory. A hearing is scheduled for Monday in a court case where Jenkins sued Washington County to get it to release the names or address of voters who can still cure their ballots, which “are ballots that need a signature confirmation or other information from those who cast them in order to be processed,” per the Deseret News’ Brigham Tomco.

ON THE BALLOT — Arizona abortion-rights advocates last week turned in double the amount of signatures to qualify a ballot measure there, per the Arizona Mirror’s Gloria Rebecca Gomez. Meanwhile, competing ballot measures — “one amendment cementing abortion rights and one limiting the procedure” — could both qualify in Nebraska, per the Nebraska Examiner’s Aaron Sanderford.

ON THE AIRWAVES

NC-Gov: Robinson, the GOP nominee, says that “unlike my opponent, I know what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck.”

NV-Sen: Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen is up with an ad saying Republican Sam Brown is “trying to change his story to get elected” on abortion.

MN-05: Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar has an ad featuring Biden shouting her out in a speech. Omar faces a primary challenge.

MO-01: United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s super PAC, has an ad attacking Democratic Rep. Cori Bush for “fight[ing] with Biden” and voting against the district.

CODA: QUOTE OF THE DAY — “The political conventions are probably the most stressful [event] that you’re going to work on. Super Bowls are probably number two.” — Treb Heining, who is coordinating the balloon drop for the Republican convention, to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.